It does, however, murder most combat. Nasty Surprise/Overload would define every tournament it was legal in, if they brought it back.

My point is that if I have to tech against Ahmed or Quicksilver, then my opponents should have to tech against Overload just the same. Acting like one card is unstoppable and another is just good, but can be teched against is not being realistic or fairly examining the situation.

Step back and look at the fact that while overload is highly disruptive to a strategy intending to more than double a characters attack value, Ahmed being (ab)used in so many different decks under the guise of stabilizing those poor teams. Overload can be prevented by no less than 3 different equips to date, as well as about 8 different plot twists ( not so fast, not on my watch, detective work, mourn for the lost, nice try, fizzle, expendable ally (isn't that the doom card's name?) the new card that helps spider-friends, and that is before even considering cards that reduce the attackers attack value like shrink and against all odds.) That sounds to me like a lot of ways to get around a card, if people want to say that Ahmed and the rest can simply be teched against.

Can you list that many options for dealing with Ahmed? The fate artifacts?

Would you like for your opponent to stun your biggest guy, stun your entire board then swing in for direct damage or search for a card? Ahmed doesn't hurt as much as overload does. Also half the cards you mentioned are rare. Doesn't help in RP format.

The difference? Out-of-combat stun/KO of characters cost 3 or less is almost ALWAYS useful. KO is frequently useful, if not always used.

Not So Fast, Not On My Watch, Mourn For the Lost, and Nice Try are extremely limited in what they can do. You would essentially be putting in a card to negate...Overload. Maybe Flying Kick or Mega Blast against a big rush deck. Especially lately, they seem to be making most of the plot twists you would WANT to negate have a higher threshold.

Fizzle, Conclave, Detective Work, Trial by Jury, and Psychic Struggle are all rares that are team (or trait) stamped, so they can't easily go in every deck, and Expendable Ally is even more limited, because Overload would HAVE to be targetting Dr. Doom.

Overload offers a free stun of a big character for literally nothing. Ahmed offers consistency - the exact same thing Enemy of my Enemy and Mobilize offer. Also, I've seen way more games lost because someone had Ahmed in play than because they had Overload in hand.

Incorrect, my friend. Overload does cost something: over commitment on my opponent's part or clever planning on my own. I will never change my mind on this one. Part of the game is accepting losing to stuff that you are not prepared for.

There IS a difference between not wanting to prepare for something and not being able to do anything about it in the first place.

There is also a difference between packing tech that is essentially useless against anything but a single card, and making absolutely sure that you can have that card in hand when you need it (essentially: play Doom, 'Pact, or Gotham Knights, or you're screwed), and packing tech that can be useful against anyone, but just so happens to allow you to win automatically against one particular deck.

However, if neither of us are going to change our minds on this, we should probably stop arguing about it and agree to disagree.

Wow, I'm negating myself a lot lately. Anyway, this is a very true statement. Overload is an amazing card just because it combos so well with otherwise mediocre cards. Nasty Surprise as a card is balanced, Overload makes it amazing. Basically: Overload needs to stay banned.

That would be because Overload has been banned for a while, lol. However, as for your point, Ahmed, single-handedly, doesn't win games, he enables the hitting of crucial drops, and sometimes it's a non-optimal drop. Like on 4, if the team-up has not been able to be flipped, sometimes the Checkmate player doesn't want to Brother I Satellite for Alan Scott but is forced too. It allows for a set curve to be played, possibly non-optimal, but, Ahmed guarantees every turn there will be a character to be dropped (unless you have no characters in hand and Slaughter Swamp/Soul World hasn't shown up yet, then...run for your life!). This, if anything, should make games more interesting. Checkmate decks can live without Enemy Of My Enemy, a lot of the time, it's only used for Ahmed.


~ Josh

And there's a difference between what you think Overload does to an enviroment and what it actually did do to the enviroment.

-Mike

Why do I feel like I'm in a zen class? Freakin' spell it out for us! ^.^


Coolexplosion

lol It means T'Challa is wrong. :p And I type a little slow when watching TV.

-Mike

Then, for my happiness/sanity, I am afraid your tv watching days have come to an end...while responding to one of my posts.


Coolexplosion

People got bent out of shape because overload was really hard to play against, and didn't feel they should have to respond to the meta by playing the handful of cards that could stop it.

Now, the options are much better than in the past, and as such, overload's overall abusiveness has diminished. Newer combat pumps focus on the controlled character, not just any other character in play. Preventing oneself from even being targeted is an option not present in the past.

Overload was only ever a problem for people unwilling to adapt to be blunt.

I hate Ahmed, and hate that I have to play around the nonsense that is Checkmate search engines. But instead of bucking for him to be banned ( which the little poopmonkey deserves) I'm prepared to accept that I just have to deal with it.

-Dieexplosion

Free stunning is better than hitting drops.

Is it just me, or did every single sentence you typed negate the one before it?


Coolexplosion

It is just you. lol

I don't like Ahmed abuse, but if he is going to stay in the game, then I have to deal with him. It irks the #### out of me when people say that overload being banned, and staying banned is acceptable though, while other highly abused cards are allowed to remain in the game.

It irks me that people just don't see that overload was always stoppable. Careful game play prevented many of it's abuses, and a little planning made it hurt the guy playing it more. GK laughed at it. Xmen rarely had a problem with it.

Doom had a control lock on it.